Author: Sten Nadolny
Year: 1983
Rank:
Rating:
Original Rating:
Pop Rating:
Genres/categories:
Fiction, Historical fiction
Purchase/reserch links:
ISBNs:
9781589880245
1589880242 |
| 
"Absolutely stunning."-
"This remarkable, superbly translated novel derives from the life of the real 19th century explorer John Franklin...[whose] adventures are conveyed with spellbinding skill."-
"[
] is about a guy who is so incredibly slow in his perception that he . . . actually sees shadows moving. [T]he amazing thing that I remember from reading that book is, whenever I looked up from that book, I felt I had this view from the book in my real world. This book made my life more interesting."-Christoph Niemann (as described in the Netflix series
)
-a huge commercial and critical success across Europe, where it is considered the popular author's masterpiece-recounts the life of the nineteenth-century British explorer Sir John Franklin (1786-1847).
Through the author's acute reading of history and his marvelous storytelling prowess, the reader follows John Franklin's development from awkward schoolboy and ridiculed teenager to expedition leader, governor of Tasmania, and icon of adventure. Slow and deliberate from boyhood, Franklin appeared destined to be a misfit. But he escaped from the ever-expanding world of industry and Empire to the sea's silent landscape, where the universe seemed more manageable. At age fourteen he joined the navy. After surviving the harrowing battles of Copenhagen and Trafalgar, he embarked on several voyages of discovery into the Canadian North, and served as governor of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania). Everyone with whom he came into contact sensed that Franklin was a rare man, one who was "out of his time" and who moved to a different, grander beat. That beat eventually led Franklin to sail once more-on his final, fateful voyage-into the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage.
is a riveting account of a remarkable and varied life. And it is also a profound and thought-provoking meditation on time. The result is an unforgettable and deeply moving reading experience that justifies the novel's reputation as one of the classics of contemporary world literature.
***
"Nadolny evinces remarkable empathy with his unlikely Odysseus and Ralph Freedman's translation captures the crystalline freshness of the author's imagery."-
"
is a masterpiece of characterization, a portrait of inwardness in the most outward-thrusting of lives."-
"Fluid and suspenseful, a thought-provoking reminder of contemporary society's tendency to speed through everyday life."-
"Amazing...His book is a historical painting, a seafarer's novel, a love story, an outcast's story all in one. This variety appears very harmonious, just as it incidentally, almost secretly, reflects on our right to discover the world at our own, personal pace."-
"Sir John Franklin is the embodied contrast to the frenetic agitation of the modern world. The discovery of slowness is the slowness of discovery."-
"Nadolny's vision is conveyed with restraint and charm...He has written a Utopia of character."-
"Its appeal lies in its observation of the texture of life, seen by a character who has to work everything out from first principles. It needs to be read slowly, to be absorbed as much as understood."-
"This is more than an adventure; it's a meditation on time and perception...Not to be rushed, or forgotten."-
"Nadolny brilliantly sets the narrative pace to the rhythms of the frozen landscape, and to the 'slowness which is bred by hunger.'"-Robert MacFarlane
"This is both a wonderful historical novel and a spell-binding individual portrait...This is a marvellous translation of a masterly work."-
Sten Nadolny (b. 1942) was an historian and filmmaker, before writing four novels and two collections of essays. He lives in Berlin and has been awarded four prizes: Ingeborg Bachmann (1981), Hans-Fallada (1985), Premio Vallombrosa (1986), Ernst Hoferichter (1995).
(1983) has been translated into all major languages.
Similar books:
|
